Even those few products that have long been considered national pride often fail in the fight against foreign competitors and are sold at lower prices.
Obviously, domestic products lack the so-called “brand name”, which is created not only, of course, by high quality, but also by a whole set of specific attributes and accessories that affect consumers during the presentation and subsequent sale of products.
Foreign advertising practice has accumulated solid experience in developing and shaping the image of a branded product among the population – brand – image (brand image), the technology for creating and implementing which is called branding (branding).
It is believed that brands owe their birth to Lord Liverhulme, who in the 1980s, against the advice of his directors, introduced packaging for each bar of soap he produced and gave him a name.
The term “brand” comes from the English word brand – brand. And the branded object stands out among its kind, acquires individuality and a special attitude of others.
Introduced into the minds of consumers, the brand image of the product allows the manufacturer to achieve a sense of its special value in them. So, perfumes of similar quality may have prices that differ by an order of magnitude from each other, but, nevertheless, more expensive ones will often get more sales. So, they have some intangible advantages. Thus, the value of a product in the eyes of consumers is created not only by tangible, but also intangible factors – specific properties and something that forms its attractiveness.
This something, which consists in the idea embodied in advertising, which distinguishes the product from competitors and combines physical and aesthetic, rational and emotional elements, meets consumer expectations, is intellectual property and is protected by law.
Barry Day of McCann Erickson, a multinational advertising corporation, aptly defined intellectual property in a brand: “an element in communication that is unique, memorable, and inextricably linked to that particular brand and no other.” These brand-related elements include slogan, tune, humor, symbols or other visual elements, graphics and color, human or animal characters, lifestyle, catchy advertising ideas, appropriate aura. They are unforgettable. Examples: Nescafe coffee – the slogan is “Good to the last drop”; Hamlet cigars – humor;
automotive fuel Agis – a symbol – a many-legged lion, and Volkswagen – a beetle, Benson & Hedges cigarettes – color; rubber products Michelin – “inflatable man” – a cartoon character; Lux soap is an exquisite product; Marlboro cigarettes – the image of a cowboy; Chuck Norris Strike cream – character; chocolate Cadbury – camel; dairy products “Laughing Cow” – animals; vodka “Smirnovskaya” – visualization of the statement that “it transforms the world”; jeans Levi’s, Jordache – lifestyle; Picnic chocolate is a melody.
There is a known case when studies showed a high memorability of Cinzano’s advertising campaign, as a result of which consumers claimed that it was about Martini. So, going in line with the latest aesthetic achievements and creating promotional products that are strong in terms of preventability does not yet mean a successful solution in terms of advertising creativity aimed at solving a specific marketing problem. In the West, such works are called “advertising novels, where there is a lot of sauce, but little meat.”
Many experts agreed that the strength of a creative idea is more important than the advertising budget for the success of a brand.
The prestige of a product, which is the basis of its branding and represented by a complex symbol that creates its reputation, is formed, as it were, in three layers. First, the background – the characteristics of the country, the area, the industry where the goods are produced.
France is famous for high fashion, Italy for exquisite design, Switzerland for precision, Germany for quality factor. Moselle, Rhenish, Burgundy, California wines or Scotch whiskey are recognized all over the world and are bought primarily because they are produced in their respective regions. And the slogan of one of the Finnish advertisements reads: “They say that we Finns are forest people. But we understand something in the forest.”
If a product in the market is accompanied by success, a high reputation, there will always be competitors who repeat its popular image or imitate it. In world practice, such unfair competition is denoted by the characteristic term those too – me too. Properly organized branding, which is a constantly evolving activity, helps to protect the manufacturer from such actions, to cut off his product from the “stuck”, which often destroy the established favorable image.
Different brands cater to different nuances of consumer demand. By the way, they are successfully used not only for consumer goods and consumer goods, but also for industrial goods produced in fairly large batches: bearings, tools, rubber products, lubricants, etc. Branded goods Bosch, Dunlop, Shell corresponding to these headings are widely known.
It is easy to see that branding reflects the desire of the advertiser to form a functioning, evolving system of advertising information that provides consumers with the perception of the “brand name” of the product, which is a prerequisite for its large-scale sales with maximum profit.
To create such a “brand name”, the presentation of brand value must be based on a clearly articulated and understandable product position for the advertising audience. The practice of one of the world’s largest transnational industrial corporations, Unilever, gives an idea of how this is done.
Its main products are shampoos, soaps, washing powders, fabric softeners, creams, tea, ice cream, spaghetti, fish sticks and other consumer products that especially need strong brand images.
The corporation’s Sunlight soap bears one of the world’s oldest trademarks, which marks products intended for sale in many countries. Sign
Sunlight appeared as early as 1885 on soap, which at that time was sold to France and Germany.
Unilever now has a turnover in the tens of billions of dollars and a network of factories built in many countries around the globe, producing products that go to the distribution network under thousands of locally selected items. At the same time, the company has registered a number of global trademarks.
